Funeral director: Coroner's office not the place for private business

During the last two months, Wilkes-Barre area funeral director Patrick Lehman has been busy urging for reform of the Luzerne County Coroner's Office.

He is upset with part-time deputy coroners, who also work in the funeral business and get customers through coroner's office work. The office is responsible for investigating deaths and body removal.

"We have a lot of good men that participate in this office," Lehman told county Manager Robert Lawton at a public meeting Nov. 20. "We have a group of them that use it as a platform for their private business."

The Luzerne County Accountability, Conduct and Ethics Commission met in closed sessions last month to review a complaint against a deputy coroner, who allegedly used his county position to solicit private funeral-service business.

The county ethics code prohibits coroner's office employees from soliciting and discussing, while on county business, private funeral services.

Lehman and Brian Leffler, director of Kniffen O'Malley Funeral Home in Avoca, spoke to the ethics commission Nov. 19.

"I have seen too many violations," Leffler said, "â¦ from coroners who are funeral directors who conveniently hand out their business cards and say, 'I can take care of this while I am here. You won't have to wait any longer.'"

Coroner's office employees have been instructed for many years that it's not appropriate to use their county positions to get private funeral business, acting Coroner Bill Lisman said.

Using funeral directors as deputy coroners allows the office to operate efficiently, Lisman said. During a public budget hearing on Nov. 14, Lisman said the county spends less on coroner's office operations than any other third-class county in the state.

The coroner's office would spend $482,337 next year, according to the 2013 budget proposed by County Manager Robert Lawton.

About 30 deputy coroners work in the funeral-service business, and they typically work on-call in regions of the county. Lisman and two deputy coroners are paid as county employees, while the other deputy coroners are independent contractors.

Lisman is a funeral director for the McLaughlin Funeral Home in Wilkes-Barre and has worked for the coroner's office since 1975. He was the chief deputy coroner last year and has been the acting coroner since the county home-rule charter went into effect Jan. 2.

The coroner was elected and ran an independent office under the former government abolished by the charter. The coroner now works in the county manager's administration and is not required to be a certified pathologist.

"We are kind of in a state of flux right now with the coroner's office," Lawton said during the Nov. 20 meeting.

Lawton said he would consider appointing a full-time medical examiner to run the coroner's office if public safety and law enforcement officials wanted that.

"I have yet to receive a complaint from a law enforcement agency about the performance of the coroner's office in pursuing investigations â¦ I do know that hiring a full-time medical examiner tends to be a very pretty pricey proposition," Lawton said. "If the public safety agencies were asking for it, that would certainly make it a different proposition."

John Corcoran was the county's last elected coroner. He stopped supervising the office when his four-year term expired in January.

Corcoran's salary last year was $36,562. Lisman's annual salary is $42,499.99.

mbuffer@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2073

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